What's Left Behind

by Lorrie Thomson

  According to Lily Beth, Abby had taken her first steps on this beach, her first falls. Lily Beth had held Abby in the water, and Abby had wriggled from her grasp, eager to dive beneath the waves. When Abby had been pregnant with Luke, the salt water had buoyed her, rendering her weightless and free. Then she hadn’t felt desperate.

  Lily Beth caught Abby’s gaze, and Abby pulled her cardigan around her, closed the lapels, wrapped one hand around her waist. Growing up, other girls complained their mothers stood by their bedroom doors, listening in on their calls. Or phoned their friends’ mothers, trolling for details. Not Lily Beth. One look, and Abby would bare her soul, a shellfish without its protective shell.

  Not today.

  Today, Abby only needed to share a select detail. Abby took the chunk of lapis lazuli down from the deck railing, pressed the tip of her ring finger into its sharpest point until her breath caught. She offered the stone to Lily Beth. “Tessa asked about my father.”

  Lily Beth took the stone from Abby’s hands and gave her a half smile, lips pursed, slight nod, sideways flick of her gaze, as if to say, Well-played. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her my father was a merman who’d returned to the sea.”

  “What was her reaction?”

  Abby laughed, but Lily Beth didn’t break a grin. “She didn’t take me seriously!”

  “No?” Lily Beth passed the lapis lazuli from hand to hand, keeping it in perpetual motion. “Perhaps she was looking for proof? Details of his existence?”

  “That would be nice. I’d like proof. A name? What he did for a living? Why he left?” Why he left me.

  Lily Beth tilted her head to the side, held Abby’s gaze, and Abby’s stomach clenched.

  Happened every time Lily Beth spoke of Abby’s father.

  “The first time I saw your father,” Lily Beth said, “I was swimming laps off Head Beach.”

  “And a man with beautiful green eyes followed you into the shallows.”

  “Only then did I discover, he was more fish than man, he belonged to the ocean.”

  “That’s nice, Mom, lovely as ever. Don’t you think I’ve outgrown your quaint little fish tale? Pun intended.”

  Lily Beth didn’t skip a beat. “Seaweed tangled around his—”

  “Legs?”

  Lily Beth shook her head, cracked a grin. “Flipper.” She took a sip of her wine, then got up and exchanged the lapis lazuli for aquamarine. When Abby’s fifty-four-year-old mother leaned against the railing and gazed out to the ocean, and the breeze combed her hair, Abby could imagine Lily Beth as a sixteen-year-old. Full of angst and longing. Full of beauty and promise. About to be sorely disappointed by her gift from the sea.

  “I untangled the seaweed from his flipper, and he claimed I’d saved his life.”

  “Sounds like a line to me.”

  “That meant he had to give me his heart.”

  Abby scrunched her nose. “Gave you more than his heart.”

  Lily Beth turned to Abby, a smile in her voice. “He most certainly did.”

  Darkness and water caused people to raise their voices, so Abby was careful to lower hers. “And then he left you.”

  Lily Beth’s voice lifted, strident. “He was never mine to keep. He was of another world. He belonged to the ocean.”

  Abby snorted, and she sounded like a juvenile, that unique blend of arrogance and unapologetic need. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  “I can do that,” Lily Beth said.

  A shiver splashed the back of Abby’s head, the front of her thighs. Her ankles ached, as though she’d just emerged from the numbing ocean.

  Like a mermaid? No. Mermaids wouldn’t feel the sting of cold.

  Lily Beth left the aquamarine on the railing and made her way to the love seat, her wide-legged pants swishing like a fin, her gaze fixed on Abby. For a second, her mother looked as if she might cry. Then Lily Beth removed her shawl, wrapped it around Abby’s shoulders, and sat down beside her.

  The ocean roiled. A buoy clanged. Abby’s heart pulsed against her ribcage. Tell me, tell me, tell me.

  Lily Beth gathered Abby’s hands in hers and refused to blink her blue eyes. Blue as Abby’s. Blue as regret.

  “Mom?”

  “Your father,” Lily Beth said, “was a healer.”

  Abby envisioned a blond merman beneath the sea, draped in an emerald velvet robe, and wielding an aquamarine healing wand. She gave her head three quick shakes to clear the fable fog. “Don’t.” Abby tried to jerk her hands away from Lily Beth, but she held tight.

  “Other people needed him more than we did.”

  “People?” Abby whispered.

  Lily Beth swallowed, and her hands warmed around Abby’s. “Mer people.”

  “That’s enough. I’m going home.” Abby wrenched her hands from Lily Beth’s, stood up, and yanked off the shawl. “Why can’t you tell me the truth? I’m thirty-eight years old!” Abby said, the across-the-ages lament of daughters to their mothers.

  “I am. You’re not listening. Settle down and—”

  “Listen with my heart?”

  Lily Beth nodded. She raised her wine to her lips, the glass trembling on its stem.

  “You can tell me anything. I’m not fragile. You won’t break me,” Abby said, in case Lily Beth was afraid Abby couldn’t handle another tragedy after having lost her son.

  How could her heart break when it was already broken?

  “You’re a strong woman,” Lily Beth said. “That’s how I raised you.”

  “Then why the riddles?”

  “You’re not ready.” Lily Beth wound her shawl around her shoulders and stood to hug Abby good-bye.

  Abby was either going to throw herself into the ocean or toss Lily Beth to the merpeople. What a pair they made. Her mother, living alone on the beach with her rocks and shells and mermaid tales. Abby at her B&B with mouths to feed, rooms to change, yet just as alone.

  Abby pulled away and dug her keys out of her jeans’ pocket. She hit the red light on her key fob to make sure it was working, flashed a trail toward the moon. “Seat belt, spare tire, car jack. I’m good to go. If I keep to the speed limit, I’ll be home in ten.”

  “I know, baby. You’re cautious. I never have to worry about you,” Lily Beth said.

  Nothing in Lily Beth’s tone indicated insult. So why did Abby hear criticism? Why did the statement hang in the air, heavy as the fragrance of the heirloom roses that surrounded her mother’s cottage? Lily Beth had told her to settle down. Abby wanted to pick up her mother’s house, her mother’s life, give it a good hard shake, and see what settled out. Maybe a middle-age beach bum who’d contributed half of Abby’s genes would tumble from the ceiling and land on the couch. See, Mom, I listen.

  “Talk to you tomorrow.” Abby clamored down the steps, started up her truck, and backed out of the driveway. She switched on the radio, Miranda Lambert singing that sassy breakup song about a mother advising her grown daughter to put on her makeup and put away the crazy. She turned off the radio and rolled down her windows. Nothing but the white noise of the road, Abby’s unanswered question about her father, and Lily Beth’s parting words.

  True enough, Abby had been cautious ever since adding the designation of innkeeper in front of her name. She certainly adhered to a daily schedule at Briar Rose. How could she not? Two weeks after losing Luke, she was back in the B&B business, dishing out hot breakfasts and warm smiles. That, above all else, should give Lily Beth proof that she could tell Abby anything. No matter what happened, she might shake, but she would not fall.

  Nothing but fresh air, a dark country road, and Abby’s headlights cutting through the dark and leading back home. Nope, Abby had never given her mother reason to worry. And Lily Beth had never coddled Abby either. If anything, Lily Beth had always pushed Abby to take bigger risks.

  So, if Lily Beth wasn’t worried about hurting Abby with the truth about her father, then who in the world was she trying to protect
?

  CHAPTER 15

  Rob’s father had taught him the importance of planning.

  You went to college, you studied hard, and you married the girl of your dreams. But at twenty-two, how could Rob have known the difference between the girl of his dreams and the first nice girl who’d stuck around? How could he have understood that even with great timing, he’d chosen the wrong woman?

  The opposite of the Abby dilemma.

  The heat of the sun branding the back of Rob’s neck, the smell of the strawberry-blond beach rose in his wheelbarrow, and the tension of the soil at first resisting and then giving beneath the weight of his shovel told Rob all was right with the world, and his decision to break up with Abby today. No point in prolonging agony. Abby wanted a baby; he didn’t. Simple as that.

  Until he caught sight of Abby making her way through the yard, and his decision cracked under the weight of wanting her.

  Abby’s sloppy-drunk words spoken on Sunday night rang true on Tuesday morning. Rob didn’t know his own mind.

  A sober and sexy Abby made her way through the yard and toward the labyrinth site. She wore a peach sundress and carried a wooden stand and a tray with three glasses of ice water, as if she’d, once again, stepped right out of one of his fantasies and into his life. Her blond curls shone with every bouncy step. From ten yards away, he could tell she smelled better than any beach rose. Five yards away, he knew he wasn’t going to break it off with her. One yard away, even a clueless guy could decipher her uneasy smile and know she felt awkward as hell about Sunday night.

  That made two of them.

  Abby unfolded the stand and set the tray on top. “Sorry to have missed your call.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Rob planted the shovel in front of him and leaned against the handle. He called to the two college boys he’d hired for the summer. “Water break!”

  The boys sauntered over, dirty and sweaty and red-faced from less than an hour of digging plots for shrubs and trail-delineating pavers. Kids needed toughening up. Rob touched a finger to his forehead, and both boys removed their baseball caps, giving Abby the proper respect. “Thank you,” they mumbled, one after another. And then they found shade under one of Abby’s ancient maple trees to gulp down their waters.

  “Much appreciated.” Rob drank half his water without pause, hoping he showed a bit more restraint than the college boys, even though the sight of Abby made him want to park himself at the end of a garden hose to quench his thirst. He set the glass back on the tray. “You’re looking well.”

  “You wouldn’t have said that if you saw me hungover Monday morning.” Abby cringed and held a hand over her mouth. “It was a doozy.”

  “Figured as much. Happens to the best of us. You’re allowed.”

  “You’re sweet to say that,” Abby said. “But I think it’s only fair to tell you, I don’t usually get falling-down drunk on a first date.”

  “Can’t help it if you’re a lightweight,” Rob said, remembering how he’d lifted her over the threshold into his apartment. The way her ribs shifted beneath his fingers, the vibration of her ticklish laughter.

  “I don’t usually throw myself at men on a first date either.”

  And there it was.

  The in-his-mind vision of Abby half undressed. The in-his-body reaction of wanting to finish the job.

  Rob shifted in place, forced himself to think of mulch. Fields and fields of dark, weed-squelching bark. “Women don’t usually throw themselves at me on first dates. Not that I’ve had a first date in over twenty years.”

  Did he need to point out the obvious? He hadn’t gone on a date since his divorce. No woman had sufficiently motivated him to make the leap. Until Abby.

  That wouldn’t be fair to tell her.

  “It’s just . . .” Abby took a step closer. Close enough for him to inhale the lemon meringue smell of her, the sun warming her skin. Close enough for him to want to bend down and taste her shoulder and—

  Rob forced himself to envision cedar mulch. Piles and piles of pale aromatic bark.

  Abby shook her head, tilted her face to the side. “I guess I wasn’t completely honest with you.”

  Ice water cooled Rob’s stomach lining, but the back of his neck broke out in flop sweat. “Oh?”

  Last time he’d seen that look, he’d come home late from work to a dark house and the now-ex waiting in the wing chair by the front door. One foot in the door, and Maria had flipped on the reading lamp to reveal her expression, each feature working hard to hold back all she needed to say.

  “Tired,” Rob had said, and headed for the stairs. “Guest room,” Maria had countered, halting him at the landing.

  Abby glanced at Rob’s two-man crew and then her gaze held Rob’s. “You were up front with me about not wanting to be a dad again. And, well, I told you I wasn’t looking for a baby daddy. But I think, maybe, I was avoiding the larger issue. Hence the rum and Coke. Hence the removal of clothing. Hence the—”

  “Abby . . .” Rob wanted to call her baby, but that wouldn’t have been fair either. “Did I seem like I minded?” He shook his head, an exaggerated side-to-side negation, and mouthed a well-pronounced, No.

  Abby laughed. “You were a gentleman. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I want to continue seeing you.” She held out her right hand, palm up. “And I want to adopt my son’s child.” She held out her left hand, moved both hands up and down, balancing two weights. “So . . . I was thinking . . . maybe we can discuss the issue.”

  “Discuss dating?” Rob worked a knot at the back of his neck, stretched to ease out a kink.

  “Discuss what it will be like for us when my life includes a new baby. We could make a plan, work out what you want, what we both want. Like when you asked me what I wanted from the labyrinth . . . What do you want from us?”

  “I want to continue seeing you, too.”

  That didn’t begin to explain the way he felt about Abby. Truth was, he’d thought about her constantly since Sunday night. Tossed and turned after bringing her home, the bedding tangling around him, as if even the extra-long sheets no longer fit. He’d thought about dropping by on Monday on the way to a job site to bring her an OJ and an egg sandwich, his days-gone-by hangover remedy. Fantasized about giving her a back rub and working his way down the rest of her body to ease out any residual tension.

  Worse, his mind had wandered to imagining living at Briar Rose with Abby. But then she hadn’t called him back, and he’d chocked his boyish daydreams up to the offbeat charm of living in his office wearing as thin as the toes on his work boots. Rob knew what he wanted. Problem was, every time he saw Abby, he forgot. He had no right to go after her, no right to lead her on—

  She had no right to look so good. And he couldn’t stand knowing he was causing that worried half smile as she squinted against the sun. Rob came out from behind his shovel and gave Abby a hands-free peck on the lips, careful not to smudge dirt all over her dress.

  He really wanted to smudge dirt all over her dress.

  But he wasn’t about to take notes and draw up a plan, set his feelings on a grid and analyze them for proper symmetry. “How about we just see what happens?”

  Abby licked her lips, but the worried half smile remained. “I don’t think that’s working for us.” She looked out to the pile of pavers—squares of marble, bluestone, and granite she’d purchased on his suggestion. “Maybe, together, we could come up with something great. Like the paving stones.”

  Abby had ordered an inscribed granite bench for sitting outside the labyrinth, but that hadn’t seemed like enough of a tribute to her son. When Abby had asked about leaving notes and prayers for Luke beneath the bench, Rob had come up with the idea for additional pavers. Plenty of room for friends and family to leave notes and prayers that wouldn’t blow away.

  Abby’s suggestion that the notes and prayers would then become part of the earth, like her son, had made Rob’s chest ache, actually ache, for Abby.

  �
�I’m glad you liked my suggestion,” Rob said.

  “You’re a great listener, when it comes to landscape design. When we’re talking friend-to-friend? Or whatever we are to each other? You shut down.”

  Ouch. Hadn’t Maria voiced a similar complaint, back when everything he did was for his wife and daughter? Now the sentiment came from the lips of the woman he cared about.

  He cared about Abby.

  Not the time to think about that.

  Tessa came barreling through the yard, headed their way. She stepped between Rob and Abby, as though she were intentionally trying to come between them. “I did something really stupid!” she sang. “I just promised Hannah I’d go to a party tonight on Head Beach.”

  Abby situated herself beside Rob, forcing Tessa to turn and face them both. “You and Hannah have become friends. What’s stupid about meeting her at the beach?”

  Tessa shrugged. The single gesture made her suddenly look like a kid, a little unsure of herself, a lot lost, and in desperate need of a good parent. “I’d kind of feel weird. Like I’d have to, you know, explain—” Tessa waved a hand over her belly.

  “You don’t owe anyone an explanation,” Abby said. “But if you don’t feel comfortable, tell Hannah you changed your mind.”

  “I have to go. I promised!” Tessa widened her eyes at Abby, and some kind of girl secret passed between them. Rob was sure of it. He’d seen Grace and her girlfriends share a whole story without uttering a single word.

  Female telepathy.

  “I should get back to work,” Rob said. “I’m on the clock,” he added, and angled Abby his own form of telepathy. We’re fine. Let’s just see what happens.

  “Wait! Are those the only pavers?” Tessa asked.

  “Only?” Abby said. “There’s a dozen of them.”